


Dinner Conversations

by moosetifying



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Food Issues, Gen, Mentions of Past Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosetifying/pseuds/moosetifying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you like the taste? Is that it? This is probably a feast to darkeyes like you, I suppose.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner Conversations

The thing about soulcast food was that it was just not very good as far as food went. It tasted stale and artificial, and was very obviously not the real thing. But when you were a large army travelling down a huge, sandy, desolate plain, you took what you could get, and what you got was soulcast food.

Kaladin knew that but it didn’t make the food in front of him any more appetizing. Still, he was hungry and he’d eaten worse. A lot worse. He grabbed his spoon and began to eat.

Footsteps crunched across the gritty earth and Kaladin looked up to see Adolin coming over, holding a bowl. 

Kaladin inwardly sighed. Just what he needed to make this unappetizing meal worse—an obnoxious lighteyed lord to bug him. 

Adolin sat down with a thump and tossed the bowl dramatically onto the table. “Ugh. Soulcast rations again.” He smiled at Kaladin. 

Kaladin grunted and scooped up another spoonful. 

“I don’t know how you can eat that,” Adolin said with a small laugh. “Father doesn’t care, of course, because soldiers eat what they’re given. But it’s just not the same as the real thing, eh?”

Kaladin didn’t bother to answer, just continued to steadily make his way through the bowl.

Adolin watched. “Do you like the taste? Is that it? This is probably a feast to darkeyes like you, I suppose.” 

Kaladin finished the last of his stew—not Rock’s, unfortunately. Rock would make a much better stew than this—and set down his spoon. He nodded his chin toward Adolin’s untouched portion. “You gonna eat that?”

“Yes,” Adolin said, pulling the bowl protectively toward his chest. “Stop trying to take my food! I may not like it, but it’s the only thing I have to eat at the moment.”

Kaladin rolled his eyes and turned back to his own bowl, scraping up a few stray grains and popping them in his mouth.

Adolin huffed, his top lip curling upward. 

Something in Kaladin snapped. He pulled Adolin’s bowl and spoon closer to his side of the table. 

“Hey—!” Adolin said, a little too late, and grabbed reflexively at the bowl.

Kaladin fended him off easily. “Slaves got this much to eat at meals,” he said, using the spoon to cut the portion of stew in the bowl in half. “If you were being punished with reduced rations? This much.” He cut a third of the remaining portion away. 

Adolin was silent.

“The food isn’t good,” Kaladin said. “But it’s food, and there’s a lot of it. So yes, I’m going to eat it.”

He smoothed over the lines he’d made in the stew and slid it in front of Adolin. “Enjoy your dinner.”

He stood up and left Adolin there. He had men to check up on, work to do. He did not look back.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated :)
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://moosetifying.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
